MiGhtyDocs: view Google Docs while offline with an iPhone, iPod Touch

Technically, the free MiGhtyDocs application for iPhone and iPod Touch does provide offline access to your Google Docs, but there’s a catch in the way it does it. And it only supports Documents at the moment, not Spreadsheets or Presentations. And there’s a catch. Wait, I already said that… so what’s the catch? Well, you have to actually view the document online first; any document you view in MiGhtyDocs will automatically be cached by the application. Ideally, it would be nice if a future version synchronized the files in the background so you didn’t have to plan for offline access, but hey, it’s a work in progress.

The free application is easy to use: just enter your Google Docs credentials and it will pull down the titles and dates all of your documents on Google Docs. Tap a document name and the text appears in the application where you can zoom in by tapping or pinching and you can rotate the screen for a landscape view (shown below).

While it’s rare to not have connectivity with an iPhone, iPod Touch owners that use Google Docs could greatly benefit from the view-only functionality, especially when they’re not near a hotspot. I’ll be watching to see how the application develops: hopefully we’ll see background synchronization as well as access to other document types.